Keep Myrmecos Ad Free!

Mycocepurus smithii, the asexual ant, is not entirely so

This week’s PNAS contains detailed follow-up research on an intriguing story that emerged a couple years ago about a purportedly asexual, all-female ant species. A 2009 report looked for, and failed to find, any genetic signal for sexual reproduction in a population of the fungus-growing ant Mycocepurus smithii in Panama. This data, along with a lack of observed males over the extensive range of the species, prompted researchers to conclude Mycocepurus smithii may be the first documented entirely non-sexual ant species.

A lack of sex is interesting, of course. The genetic mixing inherent in sexual reproduction is thought to be extremely important in creating novel combinations of alleles, providing the raw variation allowing populations to adapt to changing conditions or stay ahead of rapidly evolving parasites.

Myrmecologist Christian Rabeling decided to probe the M. smithii problemin greater depth by sampling ants from a broader distribution. He found what researchers often discover when gathering additional data: the system is messier than thought.

Rabeling confirmed with a combination of genetic and physiological data that indeed, most populations of M. smithii are asexual. But several sexual populations occur along the Amazon river in northern Brazil, and the genetic data suggest that each is more closely related to some of the asexual lineages than to each other.

Thus Mycocepurus smithii is only mostly asexual, rather than entirely so, and the transition among reproductive modes happens repeatedly.

This is an exciting find indeed. Mycocepurus is one of those rare animals that apparently does both, rendering it a suitable model for studying why sex evolves. And being a fully social ant, it is primed to become a model species for studying sexual evolution in social contexts.

One final note, and a challenge for Brazilian collectors: male specimens of this species remain unknown.

7 comments on Mycocepurus smithii, the asexual ant, is not entirely so

JasonC.

Very interesting that asexuality would emerge many times from different populations along the Amazon and Rio Negro, but only within a single species. What predisposes M. smithii to asexuality as opposed to other species of Mycocepurus? I can’t wait for this ant to be the next model organism…

These kinds of parthenogenesis and asexual-sexual atypical systems are actually pretty common in other insects as well as other ant taxa like Wasmannia auropunctata, Cataglyphis cursor according to what I read.

Certainly there is wierdness present in variable sex ratios at the edges of Ephmerella & Eurylophella spp. mayfly species-ranges with facultative parthenogenesis also noted. We need a lot more geneticists working on the details of these problems.

If there is a ‘new’ way to “bend” the reproductive process, insects have done it, LOL.

Asexual reproduction has arisen several times among vertebrates, too — sometimes through triploidy arising from hybridization as in some fishes and lizards, and sometimes in diploids as in island geckos. It seems to be “always” out there, lurking as a back-up system in situations in which it can be advantageous. And speaking of bending, there are some funny things in (I think, need to look it up) the Cnemidophorus whiptail lizards, where the the triploid females have to go through a false mating behavior with one another to stimulate egg development.

(Anyone who knows more, please correct mistatements I might have made relying on memory.)